Why Doesn’t Walmart Sell Health Insurance?

Now that the HCR bill has been passed and signed into law, I want to bring something up that I have been thinking about for a long time and something my dad raised with me this weekend:  Given its buying power, why doesn’t Walmart sell health insurance?  Currently, Walmart to sells many drugs for $4/30 day supply.  If any seller could drive down the cost of a product, it is Walmart.

Calling “This Childish Behavior Would Be An Insult To Children Everywhere”

That was Kevin Drum of Mother Jones describing the Republican antics today in the Senate.  Here is what happened:  During multiple Senate committee meetings being conducted today, Democratic Chairmen had to suspend the meeting, sometimes mid-sentence during a witnesses testimony.  Why might you ask?  Well it seems there is an obscure Senate Rule, (5(a)), which states:

The Unconstitutionality of the “Stupak” Executive Order

Bart Stupak and the rest of his “Stupak 12” just got hoodwinked by the President.  The President and the group agreed to an executive order stating that the “Hyde Amendment” which is voted on every year to forbid HHS Deparment funds from being used to fund abortions applies to the health care reform bill.  In return, the Stupak “12” agreed to vote for Health Care Reform.  But the President, acting alone, cannot enact this restriction without Congressional authorization.

Glad to See The New Republic Agrees with My Take

Today, in two blog posts, TNR writer Jonathan Cohn writes essentially the same I did yesterday:

The Truth on Reconciliation

In my previous post, I described how almost all of our health care legislation in the past 30 years has been through reconciliation.  I do not want to leave anyone with the impression that health care reform this year is being passed through that process.  Health Care Reform has passed the senate on Christmas Eve 2009 with 60 votes .  It got passed a filibuster and received a super majority.  What will be passed through the house and senate with simple majorities, will be fixes to the bill, such as removing a provision which says that only Nebraska will get extra funding to expand Medicaid or only Florida will be exempt from the repeal of Medicare Advantage.  What is not being passed through reconciliation with a simple majority is the entire health care bill.  It is only these small fixes that Republicans will not let through for an up or down vote.  So when you hear Republicans complain that Democrats are “jamming health care through with a bare majority” pay no attention to them.  They are flat out lying.  The Republicans required a 60 vote majority to pass HCR and the Democrats got the required votes.  Only these minor fixes are being passed through on a majority vote.

Verdict from the Health Care Summitt: No Chance of Compromise or Agreement

Having watched or listened to about half of today’s health care summit, one thing is painfully obvious:  there is no chance of compromise.  And there is a simple reason:  the two sides do not want the same thing.  It is one thing to compromise and give and take if the goal of two negotiating parties is the same.  But here, what Democrats want and what Republicans want is drastically different.  What you heard from Republicans is they want incremental change so that may be an additional 3 million people will get coverage.  The Democrats, on the other hand, have had enough with incremental change, and aim to cover more than 30 million people.  Since both parties do not want universal coverage or incremental change to bring down some people’s premium and give a few more people coverage, there is nothing really to compromise.  Given that the Republicans do not aim to cover most, if not all, of the uninsured, there is nothing that Democrats can given them.

Why Not Open Up Medicare to Everyone?

In the latest effort to get a “public option” in the health care reform bill, 10 senators are negotiating to open Medicare up to some people who are 55-64, but require them to “buy-in” to the system.  In this proposal, certain people from the ages of 55-64 would be able to purchase insurance through the Medicare system that currently insures our seniors.  (It is unclear if this program would be available to all people ages 55 to 64 or only those who cannot get insurance now).  This will give all of the benefits of Medicare to a larger pool of people without the government having to set-up a whole new “public” insurance program.  This will alleviate the federal government from having to set-up a new public insurance program because the infrastructure already exists.  And from all of the polling data, Medicare seems to be extremely popular with its beneficiaries.

Alternate Universe

Over the past year, I have been following the health care debate closely. But only recently have I realized how ridiculous parts of the debate are. Well, that is not exactly true. It has just gotten more ridiculous since August.